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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-AU link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>Sunday morning at Thommos Two Up School.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>There was a Filipina bloke I went to boarding school with, David, who came home with me one holiday, normally he would have flown home to Luzon City. His parents were very wealthy, he said, but it did not affect him and his father sent him to our school to continue his education in maintaining the common touch. He had 41 shirts and 80 combs and had braces on his teeth, fitted in California the year before and he went there for checking and adjustments during holidays, in his family jet. He was small for his age but could throw a baseball, make that thing turn corners almost. His luggage was moulded strengthened suitcases and there were nine of those. He wore surfie modern, we were 426 miles from the surf here, but it was all good stuff. We rode motorbikes and rode around in cars on bush properties and went shooting and fishing. He played Canasta all hours with Mum, and Bridge and liked to sleep in, impossible at school. Mum asked him what he liked to eat and we had cake every day after that, thanks mate. Towards the end of the second week he flew from my home to Melbourne, in a chartered plane, to meet his father there, I could have gone as well but didn’t. Later in the year I received a Christmas card from him and a photo of him and his family and their jet in Iceland, he said he was there looking for Santa, he was wearing my St George jumper, a few sizes too big for him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>Another guest from school was Ian, a big, really big, Polynesian boy from a Fiji island. He flew in to the capital city airport, then caught a series of smaller planes and a boat to get to his home island. He was a thorough gentleman, so kind to Mum and while we only had a week, he went home for a week after that, we did a lot, driving, riding, swimming, fishing, shooting, golfing, tennis-ing, swimming again. Ian said he thought he was older than it said in his passport and identification papers. He looked 25 and his muscles had muscles. He was not permitted to play football due to a stomach injury, an appendicitis operation which was done not quite properly, his words. He wore glasses, he was blind without his glasses and was losing them often, feeling for them on the blankets or across the tops of tables and benches and once he did that and he had them on his head. Mum made, braided, a cloth chain for him and he wore them around his neck all the time after that, much better he told her. He had very strong religious beliefs and went to church 4 times in a week, although he went every day at school. He got his Leaving Certificate the first year I was at school and he left after that. He returned early the next year for Uni, but ended up going to Hawaii for University, life is hard for some. It was during this brief return to UNSW that big Ian, D, David and I met up<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>In 1965 I was at boarding school in Bathurst, my older sister was living and working in Sydney at this time and I, and two others, were collected by her on Friday afternoon, late, to return to Sydney for a concert at Double Bay –The Kinks. It was crap. My girlfriend, D, actually left the venue and we all had after 40 minutes. Terrible. Bad, because I think still they write, wrote, good songs. The support bands were good but the stars not so – jet lag perhaps. Anyway we strolled around Kings cross for a while then looked at the nice cars in the shop windows in William Street then went to the pictures and a club after that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>My guests this weekend were David, from the Philippines, and Ian from a South Sea Island. I’m big, Ian is bigger, David is David, and D, well she is a girl.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>We had only been at school a week or so and had to be back there mid-afternoon on Sunday.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>David wanted to see a two up game. I had never been to one of those and all I could think of was the clusters or groups of men, people, in the side streets of Surry Hills when I went to collect something for the printing works in Foveaux Street. The lady at the printing works told me to be careful walking through the two up, it was gone by the time I went back that way.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>My Uncle Bill offered to help and did so, he announced there would be a game in Little Ridley Street, off Sophia Lane, he got that information from the RSL in the suburb – now why didn’t I think of that. We would go mid-morning tomorrow then meet for lunch, collect our gear, get to the train and get back to student life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>When I was much younger I was driving with Dad, to golf at lunchtime, when we saw a group of men running, on the footpaths and the Main Road in town. Dad said the Police must have raided the two up, and the SP as it turned out, and the runners perhaps were spreading out from there, it seemed serious but Dad was smiling then laughed. One of the runners, the leading edge almost, couldn’t work because of an injured leg, and this tickled Dad somewhat.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>I had seen the huddle of men in the laneway, out of sight mostly, but that laneway ran at the back of my house and sometimes I would come out our back gate, on the rear wheel of my Speedwell, and stay up there for most of the block, to be met with this group of serious faces who stopped doing what they were doing until I rode past, sedately now. This was a two up game, Dad explained. The pennies had to land on the dirt, in the dust he said, and the observation of the result, tails, heads, or one of either, that decided the result and the next action. To me it was like pokies, pokie action anyway, mindless said Dad.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>This day,D and I, David and Ian had an early breakfast and caught the train into town, Central, and walked out of Eddy Avenue. We followed a group of blokes and they said, yes, they were going to the game so we asked the group could we tail along, no worries. We found the school and an organiser said D could not stay, D said fine and she stood up the top of the steps nearby and read the newspaper until some passing lunatic made a sexual suggestion and she came back down to me, and we both left. My sole visit to a two up school, boring, and strangely quiet. There were perhaps 20 males there, and not a lot of money being passed around that I saw. I understand the concept of the game but can’t get enthusiastic about it, is this unaustralian or something. Ian says it is known where he lives and David says there is lots of gambling where he comes from, but not this, it’s more cards. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>Was it Thommos, I don’t know, I didn’t think so as I figured they would be inside somewhere, controlled, a fee to enter, some organisation, some taciturn officials. Something other than what we saw then. D said she gave up an hours cuddling for this. Enough said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>This was before Sunday shopping and D wanted shopping which we could do on the North Shore, so we told those other two we were going and would meet them and my sister at a café for lunch. We, D, me and David, had to catch a train back to school in the early afternoon too. We had to be in uniform when travelling and we weren’t, we had to be in the presence of an adult and none of us were, we had to be in house before bounds, 5.00pm, and we weren’t, so we had to plan. First, food, as we all missed tea, so railway pies all round, good too. We spoke with a taxi driver, he was aware of the dilemma, so he drove to the Memorial Park, near D school, then walked her over the road, carried her duffle bag too, she signed in, then he came back to us and took us to the Big House, no parking allowed, so we all walked up the driveway, crunching underfoot, to be met at the front door and admitted, no questions asked. David yelled back, thank you Uncle Dazzle, as he crunched off down the drive, a fresh pound in his hand, good work.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>I wrote about that concert in a school essay and scored ok with it too.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>Jockey times two+++++++++++++++<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>There were two future jockeys at school when I was there. One was pre-ordained to be one, and the other grew, actually didn’t grow, to be one, in fact had never been on a horse until he did.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>RB was from a horse family, they had horses in their back yard in the country town where they lived and when his parents visited or collected him they always had a horse float on the back of their F100, and bales of hay and bags of feedstuff. RB wore riding boots by choice, those high heeled ones too, he was a perfectly formed small man, just absolutely zero body fat, muscly and weighed 6 stone 8 ounces after tea, that’s like 45 kilograms near enough. He was a fitness freak, one of six at the college who trained daily for some athletic pursuit, a runner of long distance when he always won the race over the car racing track at the back of the college, a gentleman really, a good catholic boy, altar boy duties, latin, led the processions from the chapel, and he was refused permission to play football. The teams were aged based, the 5ths through to the 3rds, and although he was 17 or near enough he was too slightly built to be included in the senior teams, it annoyed him but he got on with it. He played hockey, really well, and in the last year played soccer outstandingly, he had sublime skills and his fitness. He said no when asked if he was going to be a jockey, but admitted he would be horse involved somehow somewhere. Anyway he got his leaving certificate and before Christmas the same year he was doing apprentice jockey chores at a sizeable stable in Sydney. He was good at it too, and the stable had good horses, it all helps I guess and his name was often in the results, if not on a winner at least on a placegetter, elevated to the dizzy heights of third because of the jockey factor. I never got a tip from him, I saw him at the races in later years and he had a firm handshake always for me and a minute to talk my rubbish. He did well over a lot of years, I would assume better than all of us in the asset aggregation stakes and travels continuously in his retirement but that is now. Back then his honesty, and from that his integrity, were the reasons you chose him to ride your horse, the ability to control and place and present the animal to the best advantage helped too. Over tea one day he told me he was a terrible judge of a horse, he depended on another bloke to pick his rides for him, at this stage he was not aligned with a stable, he had been and had a lot of success, wins and places and places out to 5<sup>th</sup> which paid him good money in addition to his riding fee. He knew the value of a shilling, this one, because I paid for the meal and he drove me to my place in his Jaguar. He was known to be riding in the forward third of the pack, always ready to strike and run on if the horse was able, capable, and he did not see it as a science nor was there a special technique, just position your horse and run on. He had never been accused of a bad ride, or a brain fart causing his mount to lose. They lost more often than they won but he had given the best chance that he could, he avoided trouble, he missed being boxed in, or cut off, or being slow away or caught at the back when the field fanned out on the corner, he was in the forward third nearly always and missed all of that, and if his ride was good enough it won, otherwise it ran up to its merits and placed, still a sizeable cheque. He left his stable because of a personality clash with another rider, the second string man who was exceedingly ambitious, and on three occasions had ridden dangerously and on two of those occasions had won, beating RB on a stable horse. Nobody at the stable was asking questions of RB, sort of why oh why did you make us lose money by losing the race type of thing, but the second string drummed up an agenda about himself and RB and RB thought it better to part ways. The stable supporters were saddened, annoyed, gob-smacked or all of that together. RB could not see how, perhaps why, they had placed so much importance on him, as the jockey riding their horse. He told me he rode the horse within the rules of racing, wearing the assigned colours, the flashy shirt and at the weight designated. He was always a light weight jockey, always weighed his 45 kilograms, but was strong, wrestler strong because he trained with one of them, an Olympian who had specialised in training athletes. RB was unlucky in love, never married, but often in the company of pretty girls.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>The other bloke, TA, was never sure of what he was going to be, he was in the form before mine and had been a boarder since he was 12, and it showed. He needed a haircut, he needed a Mum really, his tie was thinly knotted always and never done up, his shirt was out, his shoes swallowed his socks, his jumper was way too big and his trousers way too tight. He looked grubby, little and smudgy. He smoked and he was incessantly hungry but he was thin and strong, and weighed less than the other bloke. He played neither football or hockey, no sports that I knew of, but he was often in the stands, yelling for the team, supporting, part of the crowd on your side.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>Form 9 do work experience in the second term and he did his at the railway yards, where he may have been teased, trussed up, hung upside down, and all day at that. He didn’t complain, he told us about it but was good natured with it, the College would have been annoyed perhaps if they found out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>Anyway, another kid went to a stable for three days, in his home town though so he had Mum food every night for once but that wasn’t the big news, the stable had won two on the trot this day, then a third and fourth on subsequent days and there was quite a bit of money for starters, but energy, excitement, whatever comes from that when a 14 year old with no vocabulary was describing it. This fascinated TA, what, you ride the horse to a win and you are showered with money like. Pretty much, was the tale teller response, I was there, I heard them talking. I wanted to interrupt, to check the facts, but they went back and forth, wonderous news of money for results on one side, and more information wanted, or at least, confirmation that a 15 year old had upwards of $3000 in a roll of notes, all garnered from the betting and racing the day before.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>Seems that from that point of time onwards TA was going to be riding winning horses, daily perhaps, and will accept a money shower anytime. His father said no, expletive deleted, a jockey, no way, nah, little criminals, you are getting a proper trade, a boiler maker or welder, mechanic or something. Somewhat deflated, and annoyed with his father, I mean unhealthily out of love with his parents actually, he moped at school, which is what he did after all and before the knock. Mid term his father died, he said this was a blessing, he said this was a miracle, he said he had a belief in miracles and I wrote that just as he said it. TA left college that afternoon, bereavement pass, and has never returned, his broken guitar was on top of the lockers at year end still, the strings stolen, and his dry-cleaning, wrapped in a large brown paper parcel was still awaiting collection in the dorm at that time too, his gutted tennis racquet, with those of others though, was hanging outside under the veranda of the sport room and his school shirt, pants and shoes were on his bed in the dorm, on his pillow it is said, a real no no, an assessed stick it up the establishment motion there, his bathroom locker was open and was the receptacle for all forms of rubbish, clothing, whatever, as the weeks passed.. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'> Look, I don’t agree with what he said, blessings and miracles aside, but if somebody was going to say something like that, it was going to be him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>So he left and never returned. About the middle of next year, my last year, I was reading the Sunday paper, on Tuesday at home – country town remember, and I saw that he had ridden a winner, in Dubbo, this was his 15<sup>th</sup> win, from 109 rides, and there was no mention of a money shower, well there wouldn’t be. But he was mentioned in the paper occasionally and he was getting a paycheck on and off it seemed. It seemed he travelled extensively to ride, to be seen, to help out a trainer, he seemed to really try to make a success of this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'> I never saw him ride but within 7 or so years he had gone, out of riding but perhaps still in the industry in some capacity, I don’t know what he did when race riding stopped. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>There were cadets at College, army trainees as this was during the ramp up for Vietnam. The cadet training was popular, a lot of weapon work, no shooting though, but the marching was superb, who would have believed that blokes could be co-ordinated like that. They won prizes, for their appearance, for their skill sets, for their marching and for their band. I applied to be in the band and had a try out, I could drum, I mean I had an understanding of the technique of drumming as required, depending on the sticks rebounding quickly off the drum head to get that distinctive sound, I had an ear as well, I picked up on the rhythm quickly, there was no other music, just drums, two bass, and a bunch of snares, with over the shoulder plaited straps. I practiced with them, and I practiced by myself, but the drummer numbers were restricted, 5 in the front row, then 3, then the two bass drums in a line after them. I didn’t make it, there were no vacancies anyway, and a couple of applicants. I was sort of relieved because they went into kilts in the last year. Kilts, dresses mate in a Polish named school with an American sourced catholic religion in the middle of New South Wales, in some oblique lined cloth, I think the tartan of a Cardinal from way back. Ok, I would have worn the kilt just to immerse myself in the experience. The marching band, without the marchers, were on Bondi Beach, when I saw them last, they sounded really good, nice and tight with the playing and their marching. So, let’s go with this again, a Polish named school, in Australia, in Scottish clothing, playing Asian made instruments, with drum sticks from the Caribbean, representing a religion head quartered in Rome, and a school managed by priests from a catholic sect from America. World music I would call that. Good band though. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>We were taught marching at school – some get it wrong and it is not because they are in time with the music, just a long way from the source, therefore they look like they are out of step. That’s not it, some lose the cadence, most don’t but those out of step really make it cringe worthy for the rest of us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:105%;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br />
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